storm that brings rain) were offered, and they were routinely involved in sacred prostitution to insure the fertility of the flocks and the fields. After the destruction of that temple in 586 BCE, the prophetic traditions of the Word of Yahve, now alive in the voices of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the disciples of Isaiah of Jerusalem, gained the attention of the people with arguments that denied the existence of any god other than Yahve. Thus Israelite religion re-invented itself as the paragon of monotheism. This doctrine became central to the religion of the Second Temple, dedicated in 515 BCE and destroyed in 70 CE.
The dispersion of the Jews during and after the Exile in Babylon saw the emergence of a new institution which may have had roots in the Exile: the synagogue. Deuteronomic traditions established that only the altar at the temple in Jerusalem was the legitimate place where sacrifices were to be offered, but access to it was not always available due to its distance from where Jews were now living. At the synagogues, the Torah, the document being compiled at that time by the priests, became the center of attention. The Torah, however, was not studied in order to establish right doctrines, or a creed. It was studied to map a way of life. Obedience to the commandments became the way to live in harmony with God. The scribes, a new class of experts on Torah, adopted as the motto of the synagogue the Shema, the text from Deuteronomy that became the call to worship: “Hear, O Israel: Yahve is our God, Yahve is One” (Det. 6:4). Its centrality was recognized by Christians who in the gospel According to Mark report that Jesus included the Shema as part of the great commandment to love God with all your heart, mind and soul (Mk 12:29).
In According to John we find a Jesus who is viewed by “the Jews” as one who breaks the law of the Sabbath and, therefore, is a sinner (9:24); he also blasphemes by “making himself equal with God” (5:18). On account of this preposterous claim, “the Jews” thought it impossible for Christians to claim the inheritance of the monotheistic religion of the Second Temple. As far as they could tell, these Christians had a second god.
The prologue concludes stating that the Son is “in the bosom of the Father” (1:18). This metaphor underlines the intimacy of the relationship with a very feminine touch. Jesus himself declares that “the Father is in me and I am in the Father” (10:38). To Philip he explains that whoever has seen him has seen the Father (14:9). In a more direct statement Jesus affirms, “I and the Father are one” (10:30). At the end, Thomas makes the confession that the Johannine Christians thought all Christians should make: “My Lord and my God” (20:28). In Chapter 17 Jesus appeals to the unity enjoyed by the Father and him and insists that there must be unity among the disciples. At the climax of the prayer Jesus pleads: “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (17:21).
That the unity of the Father and the Son is open to allow the disciples, already united among themselves, to enter it and be united “in us,” tells us that the unity of the Father and the Son does not imply homogeneity. There can be differences among those united. The next verse says that the glory of the Son was given to him by the Father (17:22). The relationship of the Father and the Son is that of “The One Who Sends” and “The One Sent.” To see the relationship in this way is what not only the disciples but the whole world must come to see. All must recognize in him the One Sent by the Father. In this way the declaration that The Son is God, totally repugnant to Judaism, is already being nuanced in According to John.
It took a couple of centuries for Christianity to fully accept the idea that Jesus was not another incarnate divine being, but the incarnation of God. That was done at the Council of Nicea in 325 CE. Not all Christians shared this way of seeing Jesus however, especially those who were primarily influenced by the preaching of Paul as evidenced by the gospel According to Mark. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, is the one who about 150 CE brought to the forefront the Johannine understanding of the Logos as the key to Christology. His arguments were then developed by Athanasius, the one who proposed a Logos/God Christology at Nicea. The position of Arius, who insisted on seeing the divine being incarnated in Jesus as a “first-born” or one “begotten,” however, did not disappear after Nicea. Arian Christianity continued to be prominent in the West for many centuries even after the Council of Chalcedon, in 451 CE, arrived at a compromised explanation of how the Logos and God could be one. The long history of the Christological controversies in the first Christian centuries actually begins with the Johannine community’s recognition that by claiming that the Logos was God they had a problem on their hands if they wished to remain monotheistic. That it saw the problem is evident by its effort to give some nuance to its claim to Jesus’ equality with God.
In chapter 5, where “the Jews” explicitly accuse Jesus of making himself equal with God, Jesus defends himself by explaining that while in fact the Son and the Father are one, his claim to divinity does not represent a real challenge to monotheism. In order to understand this defense of monotheism we need to consider some background. Judaism taught that while God did delegate some functions to agents, there were some functions that were exclusively God’s. These were primarily the prerogatives to judge and to give life. After having healed the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus claims these two divine prerogatives for himself.
In their discussions of the person of God, the Pharisees were also concerned with how to understand God’s need to keep God’s laws. This was a problem in connection with the Sabbath law. Since the world does not run on its own and there are no other gods in charge of running different natural phenomena, if God rests on Sabbaths, creation should disintegrate on these days. Since creation continues to function properly on Sabbaths, God must be working on every Sabbath to keep it going. This means that God also has the prerogative to work on Sabbath.
Jesus shocked “the Jews” by claiming to have this prerogative also. To defend himself for having cured the paralytic and having told him to carry his mat home on a Sabbath, Jesus says: “My Father works until now, and I work” (5:17). “The Jews,” correctly, understood that with these words Jesus was claiming for himself God’s exclusive prerogative to work on Sabbath. This declaration explicitly divides God in two and claims that both can work on Sabbath.
The conflict over monotheism is elaborated in According to John in two directions. On the one hand, Jesus elevates his claims even higher. Besides the prerogative to work on the Sabbath, the Son can also judge (5:22, 27), and he can give life “to whomever he wishes” (5:21, 26). Both activities, as already said, are God’s exclusive prerogatives. On the other hand, the Son cannot exercise these prerogatives independently. Everything he does, he does together with, and according to the will of the Father (5:19, 30). His activity is totally subordinated to the Father. He does not have an independent will. In this way the Son as God is being carefully defined as subject to the Father’s will. According to John, the gospel that squarely challenges the monotheistic religion of Yahve, begins the process that Christianity has been carrying on for centuries: trying to explain the relationships of the persons within the Godhead in a way that does not negate its claim to have only one God.
The claim that the incarnate Logos is God is so audacious that According to John recognizes that this claim needs to be backed by evidence. At once, Jesus admits that his claim cannot be sustained by the fact that he says so. “If I bear witness to myself, my testimony is not true” (5:31). To sustain his claim to God’s exclusive prerogatives and to work as one with the Father, Jesus presents supporting witnesses.
The first is John the Baptist. His ministry had been “a burning and shining lamp” which for some time the Jews had considered valid (5:35). In the first chapter we read that “John bore witness to him .… he confessed, he did not deny .… ‘I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God’” (1:15, 20, 34). Given his influence in Judaism, the testimony of John is effective. But his repeated negations (“I am not the Christ,” “I am not Elijah,” “I am not the prophet,” etc., 1:21 – 22) and the rivalry between the disciples of John and those of Jesus (given that Jesus was baptizing more people than John, 3:26; 4:2) gave rise to doubts about John’s testimony among some. Jesus, therefore, presents more witnesses.
In
